Arapahoe County Sheriff Dave Walcher                               and                             Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz

Sheriff Dave Walcher and Chief Nick Metz joined us on Wednesday to announce the new crime lab being built near Centennial Airport.  They included information about their jurisdiction and primary functions as well.  

Sherriff Walcher’s team patrols the unincorporated areas of Arapahoe County.  The county is 70 miles long and 12 miles wide.  Centennial has also contracted with the Arapahoe County to provide police protection for the city.  In addition to investigating and solving crimes, the sheriff also is in charge of the Arapahoe County Detention Facility on Potomac.  At any one time they have a hundred or more convicted people waiting for their penalty to be set.  They also have people waiting for bail to be set.  There are people of lesser crimes serving their sentences as well.   He mentioned that one of the more notorious inmates was the Aurora theater shooter.

Chief Metz just returned from a conference of chiefs of major cities in Orlando.  Aurora has just been named a major city.  It’s a combination of population and number of sworn officers.  Chief Metz has 742 sworn officers and roughly 230 civilians.  He said at the conference he had the New York Commissioner on one side and Los Angeles on the other. There are 60 major cities in the US.  He said there were a number of people initiating some practices that Aurora has been doing for several years.

The idea of a shared crime lab came about through a meeting at a coffee shop with Sheriff Walcher and Sheriff Tony Spurlock of Douglas County.  They then reached out to Chief Metz and District Attorney George Brauchler about the idea.  All parties thought that it was amazing idea to share a crime lab.  Douglas County stepped up and offered the land and to build the building.   The new crime lab is called Unified Metropolitan Forensic Crime Lab.    The lab has the capability to serve Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties — with a population of about 1 million people.  They will be able to get DNA results in one or two days instead of 3 or 4 months.  CBI (Colorado of Bureau of Investigation) has taken 3 years in some cases.  The FBI has to certify and validate procedures at the new lab, which should happen soon.  The lab will provide finger printing, ballistics and other forensic details.  The lab is 27,000 square feet with an additional 12,000 feet available for future expansion.  All precautions are being exercised to prevent contamination of any kind.   They said that Lt. Tim Leflore will be heading up the lab and establishing priorities to be examined.  Sheriff Walcher said that the lab will be able to host visitors and Chief Metz indicated it is like being in an aquarium.  

Chief Metz wrapped up the presentation with updates about the Aurora police department's patrol cars having license plate readers installed.   This should provide an additional level of safety for the offices while driving.

Check out this link for more details about the Unified Metropolitan Forensic Crime Lab:

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/new-crime-lab-in-arapahoe-county-big-forensic-deal-for-multiple-agencies